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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/29184480">Catching Colds and Feelings</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/dweadpiwatemeggers/pseuds/dweadpiwatemeggers'>dweadpiwatemeggers</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>Little Know It All [2]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Mind Blind - Jo O'Connor</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Denial of Feelings, F/M, Feelings Realization, Mutual Pining, Pining, Pre-Relationship</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2021-02-03</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2021-04-10</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-13 13:41:04</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Teen And Up Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>3</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>4,256</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/29184480</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/dweadpiwatemeggers/pseuds/dweadpiwatemeggers</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>A superhero catches a cold. A meddlesome brother attempts to play matchmaker. And Ellie Wiseman can't resist a challenge.</p><p>Inspired by a number of the author's answers to reader questions and some in-game text.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Button/Grayson "Gray" Black, Female Button/Grayson "Gray" Black</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>Little Know It All [2]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/series/2142618</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>8</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>50</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>1. Ellie</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>
  <em>Flashback time! </em>
</p><p><em>One year before present day</em>…</p><p>Ellie Wiseman could never resist a challenge. As a child, she could have settled for being told that Santa was real, but she <em>had</em> to stay up all night and find out for herself. In high school, just making the baseball team wasn’t good enough, she <em>had</em> to be a starter. Now that she's decided to apply to AEON, she fully intends to beat the current ASE record. And if that means spending the entirety of a beautiful August day studying, so be it.</p><p>(No, she doesn’t have a complex, why do you ask?)</p><p>With Nick at work, she’s commandeered the kitchen for easy access to snacks. Her ASE study guides are spread out over the island and she’s got motivational movie soundtracks queued up on her phone, prepared for a full day on her backside. Neck deep in some convoluted legal jargon about the loopholes that can be applied to extradition treaties, her highlighter poised over what seems to be a relevant sentence, she just about falls off the stool when Nick’s voice breaks through her concentration.</p><p>
  <em>I need a favour.</em>
</p><p>She frowns at the interruption, but Nick doesn’t ask for favours very often. And definitely not in the middle of the work day.</p><p>
  <em>I’m listening.</em>
</p><p>
  <em>Do we have any chamomile in the pantry?</em>
</p><p>Really? She rolls her eyes. Possibly the world’s most powerful telepath, and he’s using it to ask about the contents of their cupboards.</p><p><em>Are you getting sick? </em>she thinks, hopping off the stool to go look. Neither of them particularly like chamomile, sharing the opinion that (in Ellie’s words) ‘it tastes like a mown lawn.’ They only use it to treat cold symptoms, when they’re so congested that they can’t taste it anyway, so they rarely have any in the house.</p><p><em>I’m fine,</em> comes his response. <em>Gray’s about to keel over at his desk though. I’m sending him home. </em></p><p>She huffs a laugh as she continues rifling through the cabinet. <em>Did you have to make it an official order?</em></p><p>In spite of (mostly) adopting an American lifestyle, Gray’s Britishness does leak through in a few ways. He gets all ‘stiff upper lip’ about being sick, completely ignoring or explaining away his symptoms until Nick either sics a medic on him or literally orders him to go home and sleep it off. She’s not sure if it says wonderful things about his work ethic or terrible things about his sense of self-preservation. Maybe both.</p><p><em>Yes.</em> His mental voice sounds disgruntled. Probably because of the extra paperwork.</p><p>Eventually, she finds the box at the very back of the cabinet, behind a half-dozen free samples with names like <em>The Spice is Right</em> and <em>Just Beet It </em>that had been sent to UCRT as part of an attempt to drum up some publici-tea through sponsorships.</p><p>
  <em>Found it!</em>
</p><p>
  <em>Perfect.</em>
</p><p><em>Favour complete</em>, she thinks, depositing the box on the corner of the island, and mentally preparing to dive back into the morass of legal nonsense that was apparently necessary for MIVs to know. <em>You can have this one on the house.</em></p><p>
  <em>That wasn’t the favour.</em>
</p><p>Hm. Alright then.</p><p>
  <em>We have chicken soup in the freezer. Can you make a delivery? And see if you can get him to rest?</em>
</p><p>
  <em>Delivery, no problem. Not sure how you think I’m going to get him to rest though. </em>
</p><p>What she really means is, “Please don’t ask me to be alone in a room with him. I definitely don’t have feelings for him because I locked them in a box, wrapped the box with tape, shoved it in another box, tied it shut, and tossed it in Lake Michigan. But apparently my feelings are kind of like Jumanji? Minus the ominous drumbeats. The point is they keep coming back. And I think my ‘if I deny it hard enough I’ll convince myself we’re just friends’ plan will be just slightly harder to pull off if we’re alone.” But she tries not to think too hard about that. Not that she’s actually able to keep secrets from Nick. But, you know, a girl can pretend (and a brother can pretend not to hear).</p><p>
  <em>If anyone can do it, you can.</em>
</p><p>She pauses. That sounded like a challenge. She had plans - to study, to snack, to suppress her feelings into non-existence… but… the challenge.</p><p><em>Fine.</em> She sighs.</p><p>Challenge accepted. Now, time to work out how to win. And to think about what the hell she’s going to wear. Because she's not turning up on Gray's doorstep in her pyjamas, thank you very much.</p><p>
  <em>You’re the best, Button.</em>
</p><p>She snorts, packing up her study materials. <em>I’m the only Button.</em></p><p>
  <em>—-</em>
</p><p>One change of clothes (denim cut-offs, concert tee from a band she doesn’t remember seeing - good enough for seeing a <em>friend</em>), a quick trip to the pharmacy, and an awkward trip on the Metro with a tote bag full of ‘Grayson jars’ (Nick’s name for the containers he sends Gray’s leftovers home in) later, Ellie’s standing in front of Gray’s apartment door, listening to his phone ring on the other side. At least it’s charged today.</p><p>“Hello?” He sounds terrible - raspy, congested, and half-asleep. She can’t even see him and she already wonders how, exactly, he thought it would be a good idea to go to work today.</p><p>“Hey, it’s Ellie.” He probably knows that. Caller ID is a thing. “Can you open the door?”</p><p>Normal people would probably say something like, “Can you let me in?” Of course, normal people who had known each other for years and considered each other friends (she’s pretty sure he considers her a friend, at least) don’t stand four feet apart at all times. But he’s careful about her personal space, and she’s not about to complain about him <em>not </em>reading her mind. She’s quite happy for him to stay in the dark about her stupid crush, thank you very much. And hey, normal people also didn’t have to be ordered home from work so they didn’t pass out at their desk, so at least she’s not the only weird one involved in this conversation. At any rate, the hallway is too narrow for him to let her in <em>and</em> maintain the four foot bubble, so he has to open it and back up before she can get closer.</p><p>“Did Nick send you?” he starts, “I told him -”</p><p>“Can we save the whole ‘I don't want to be a bother’ routine until I’m inside, please?” She cuts him off. If he’s going to do it anyway, she’d rather he do it somewhere she can deal with the bag of soup. It’s heavy. Her arms are tired. “I’m already here.”</p><p>A sigh comes down through the line, and it sounds like he’s getting up, but she doesn’t hang up on the call until he opens the door.</p><p>Gray sounded bad. Objectively, he looks worse. His nose would make Rudolph jealous, his eyes could compete with a Krispy Kreme donut, and his skin looks like he rolled in the remnants of a bonfire, it's that ashen. Her traitor heart skips a beat anyway. Because even if he looks like death warmed over, it’s still <em>him</em>.</p><p><em>Don’t stare, Ellie</em>, she thinks.</p><p>He takes in the tote bag at her feet, “You didn’t have to -”</p><p>She just rolls her eyes. “It’s <em>fine,</em> Gray. Now go sit down, you look like hell.”</p><p>“It’s just a headache.” He protests, backing away from the entry to let her in without breaking the four foot bubble. “It’ll pass.”</p><p>“Uh huh. Have you taken your temperature?” She asks.</p><p>“I’m not sick.” She knew he would say that. “And I don’t have a thermometer.” She had a feeling he would say that too.</p><p>Time to start Operation: Remedy. Phase One? Prove to Grayson Black that he is, in fact, ill. She reaches into the tote bag and tosses him a package with a smile, “Now you do.”</p><p>He looks at it. He looks back at her.</p><p>She smiles. Not having a thermometer? No longer an excuse.</p><p>“If the reading comes back normal, I’ll leave you alone,” she sing-songs. She’s like, 90, 95% confident that it won’t be.</p><p>He obviously knows it too, because he slinks off to the couch with a defeated, “Fine.”</p><p>She drags the bag into his tiny (and mostly unused) kitchen, and starts unpacking - a tray from Nick’s bar, jars of soup, box of tea, packet of cough drops - listening for the beep of the thermometer.</p><p>“Well?” she calls over her shoulder when she hears it.</p><p>He mumbles something.</p><p>“I’m sorry, I didn’t catch that.”</p><p>“One hundred and one.”</p><p>Phase One - success. She does not smirk at the victory.</p><p>Well. Maybe she smirks a little. Just a smidge. But he can't see it, so it totally doesn’t count.</p><p>“How about that,” she says mildly, opening and closing cabinet doors as she looks for a mug for the tea. She eventually finds them - far enough back on the second shelf that they are entirely out of reach for her. She huffs -<em> tall people</em>, and grabs the spoon that she had found for the soup and standing on tiptoe, uses it to drag a mug out by the handle. Only to realize he doesn’t have a kettle. <em>Worst Brit ever, </em>she thinks. She’ll have to microwave water like some kind of heathen. At least the microwave has enough space for a jar and the mug.</p><p>
  <span>She puts them in, sets the timer and watches them spin as the microwave counts down. It buzzes, she checks the temperatures before placing the soup and tea on the tray, picks it up and turns to carry it to the living room, only to find Gray still standing there. Just… looking at the wall.</span>
</p><p>She waits.</p><p>He doesn’t move.</p><p>“You’re blocking the exit, superhero,” she prompts.</p><p>Gray startles. “Right…” he mutters, backing away.</p><p>She sets the tray down on the coffee table, noticing the pile of papers he appears to have brought home from the office as she does so, and gestures for him to take a seat. “Tea, soup, nap. Proven 100% effective most of the time.”</p><p>“Really, this isn’t necessary -”</p><p>“You have a fever. Drink the tea. Eat the soup. And lie down,” she repeats, a little more forcefully this time. “If you’re still awake after 15 minutes, I’ll back off and let you get back to work.’”</p><p>Operation, Remedy - Phase Two: use proof of illness as reason for self-care, offer a plausible time limit in an attempt to seem reasonable.</p><p>She’s hoping that she won’t have to go into Phase Three: threatening to call Nick. It's not a bluff. She will absolutely call Nick if she has to, and Nick will <em>absolutely</em> come to the apartment, and Grayson will have to deal with the loudest clucking in the Midwest. But that would be admitting defeat.</p><p>And Ellie Wiseman doesn’t admit defeat.</p><p>He opens his mouth. Closes it. Opens it again. He seems skeptical.</p><p>“I didn’t drug your food,” she says dryly. <em>Although, considering how this conversation is going, I probably should have</em>.</p><p>“I didn’t think -”</p><p>“<em>Gray</em>!” she exclaims.</p><p>“Right, sorry.”</p><p>She sits down at the opposite end of the couch, as close to the arm as possible, and pulls her prep materials out of her backpack while he eats, peeking sideways at him every so often. Which is how she catches him having finished the soup, trying to sneak his paperwork over.</p><p>“Hey!” He starts, guiltily. “We had a deal,” she reminds him.</p><p>Gray stares at her for a minute, and she <em>just</em> manages to hold his gaze without flushing before he realises he’s not getting out of it. “Fifteen minutes.”</p><p>“Mhm. Fifteen minutes,” she agrees.</p><p>He sighs, and stumbles off to his bedroom. She sets a timer. Fifteen minutes pass. Not a peep. Should she check? That would be weird. Right? That would be weird? But how else will she know that she’s won? I mean, him not coming back is pretty indicative, but she doesn’t know for sure. Then again, it kind of feels like a massive invasion of privacy to peek on him while he’s sleeping. And what if he’s not? She feels awkward enough around him as it is without having to explain that. But he’s probably asleep. And if he is, she kind of does need to know so that she can gloat about it. And anyway, he probably closed the door, and she’s not about to open it. So if it’s closed, that’ll be that.</p><p>She pads down the hall, careful to make as little noise as possible, sure that she’ll be confronted with a closed door and Schrodinger’s patient.</p><p>Except she isn’t. No, his door is wide open and he’s curled up on the bed with an armful of comforter tucked against his chest like a misshapen teddy bear. <em>Okay. That's...adorable.</em> She feels that all too familiar squeeze in her chest.</p><p>
  <em>Fuck.</em>
</p><p>She backpedals to the living room and grabs the tray off the coffee table. Midway through washing the dishes it occurs to her… Gray’s asleep. And she doesn’t have a key to lock the door behind her if she leaves.</p><p>She’s stuck.</p><p><em>Favour complete. </em>She texts Nick. He’s got a spare. <em>N</em><em>eed a rescue. No way to lock up.</em></p><p><em>Meetings all afternoon.</em> He texts back a minute later. I’ll<em> swing by ASAP, but it won’t be until the end of the day.</em></p><p>She checks the time. It’s only 1:15. So much for her plans.</p><p>She spends the rest of the day on Gray’s couch, studying, watching the sunlight track across the floor and feeling slightly like her brain is leaking out her ears as she tries to parse the legalese.</p><p>It’s a little after five when she hears the lock turn in the door. <em>Quietly</em>, she thinks. <em>He’s still asleep.</em></p><p><em>Did you spike the soup, or the tea? </em>Nick asks.</p><p>
  <em>I feel like I should be offended that you <span class="u">both</span> wondered that.</em>
</p><p>
  <em>You considered it, though, right?</em>
</p><p>
  <em>...Shut up.</em>
</p><p>Nick chuckles quietly. <em>Shall we?</em></p><p>She nods, stuffing her work in her backpack before scrawling a note across a bit of scrap paper and dropping it on top of the paperwork on the coffee table.</p><p>
  <em>Soup in the fridge.</em>
</p><p>
  <em>Tea &amp; cough drops on the counter.</em>
</p><p>
  <em>Take better care of yourself!</em>
</p><p>
  <em>-- Ellie</em>
</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>I cannot claim credit for The Spice is Right and Just Beat it. They're real teas.</p>
        </blockquote></div></div>
<a name="section0002"><h2>2. Grayson</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Grayson Black is not sick. He does not <em>get </em>sick. Sure, he may have had some chills this morning, but the air conditioning on the UCRT floor was probably just running high. And he may have a sniffle, but it’s the middle of summer! Isn’t that peak allergy season? He is absolutely fine, and if Nick hadn’t gotten it into his fat head to <em>order</em> him to go home, then he could still be at work doing his job. At least he managed to sneak some paperwork home with him. Nothing that would break regulations to have out of the office, obviously, it’s mostly expense reports and the like - things that need to get filed but usually end up on the back burner because they aren’t time sensitive - but something must have been wrong with the printer because the text is all blurry. It’s got nothing to do with the sharp pain in his temples. It’s definitely the printer.</p><p>He’s hunched over his coffee table (If he’s going to work at home, he can at least be comfortable, it has nothing to do with the way his whole body ached when he tried sitting at his desk. He probably needs a new chair.) doing his best to work out what he's supposed to be filling out on this line when his ringing phone nearly startles him out of his skin.</p><p>He checks the screen: Ellie. That’s… unusual. They text, (because they’re friends, and friends text each other), but outside of when they were trying to organize Nick’s surprise party, she’s never called. Especially not in the middle of a weekday. His stomach clenches, his mind jumping - <em>is she ok? does she need help?</em> - to worst case scenarios. He fumbles the phone, rights it, answers.</p><p>“Hello?” His throat stings a little when he speaks. That’s an allergy symptom, isn’t it?</p><p>“Hey,” she responds. <em>She sounds calm, she’s ok. </em>The tension in his stomach dissipates. “It’s Ellie. Can you open the door?”</p><p>Can you open the… It takes him a second longer than usual to understand what she means, his momentary panic over her well-being shading into confusion. What is she doing here? How would she even know he was home, unless…</p><p><em>He fucking didn’t</em>...</p><p>“Did Nick send you?” he says, “I told him -” <em>I’m fine</em>, he tries to finish, before she cuts him off with some rather pointed words about not wanting to be a bother.</p><p>He doesn’t. Want to be a bother, that is. But she raises a fair point about already being here. It would be worse to just send her back home after she made the effort to come over, wouldn’t it?</p><p>Nick was probably counting on that when he asked her to check up on him. Arsehole.</p><p>He heaves a sigh - getting up off the couch takes more effort than it should - and takes a quick look around the room to check that it’s tidy before he goes to the door. It is. Of course it is. And he rather doubts that she’d care if it wasn’t. But at this particular moment, it really feels like it matters.</p><p>Ellie’s standing in the hallway, phone still held to her ear. Her brown eyes - deep brown, the kind a man could get lost in - widen at the sight of him as he stands in the doorway. He says could. He means does. They’re dark, warm, flecked with black and framed by impossibly thick lashes and...</p><p><em>You’re gawking, Black</em>. He gives himself a mental shake and looks down. And he notices the bags. That she’d lugged all the way here. For him. And that swooping in his gut is definitely not allergies. No, that’s guilt. (It<em> is</em> guilt. That’s <em>all</em>.)</p><p>“You didn’t have to -” he starts to say, but she cuts him off again with a roll of her eyes.</p><p>“It’s <em>fine,</em> Gray,” she says. “Now go sit down, you look like hell.”</p><p>Ouch.</p><p>He backs away from the entry to let her in, protesting, “It’s just a headache.”</p><p>He’s fine. She can make her delivery like Nick asked her to and go. He’s sure she has better things to do. “It’ll pass.”</p><p>“Uh huh.” And he may not be an empath, but even he can feel the scepticism radiating off of her. “Have you taken your temperature?”</p><p>“I’m not sick.” He insists, around the scratching in his throat. And anyway, he doesn’t get sick, so naturally he doesn’t have anything to take his temperature with. “And I don’t have a thermometer.”</p><p>She doesn’t seem at all concerned by that, just reaches into one of her bags and tosses a small package his way. He catches it, and looks down. It’s a thermometer. Of course it is, because she’s smart enough - <em>so damn smart, she’s going to be brilliant as an MIV</em> - to come prepared. He looks back at her, and she’s smiling. Beaming, really.</p><p>Her smile could light up a room. <em>Is</em> lighting up the room.</p><p>She’s also saying something. He blinks, managing to tune back in before he’s forced to admit that he hadn’t been listening, “...reading comes back normal, I’ll leave you alone.”</p><p>He’s not getting out of this.</p><p>“Fine.”</p><p>She drags the bag into his (essentially pointless) kitchen, and he can hear her rustling around as he pops the thermometer in his mouth.</p><p>He waits.</p><p>It beeps.</p><p>He looks.</p><p>“Well?” she calls.</p><p>“That can’t be right,” he mutters, more to himself than her. Because that temperature is a low grade fever. And he doesn’t get sick.</p><p>“I’m sorry, I didn’t catch that.”</p><p>“One hundred and one.”</p><p>“How about that,” she says, mildly.</p><p>Cheeky. He smiles to himself. Of course she is, she’s Nick’s sister. <em>She’s Nick’s sister.</em></p><p>The smile falls away.</p><p>She’s also still rummaging around in his kitchen - he can hear the cabinets opening and closing as she looks for...whatever it is she’s looking for. He gets up to help, and ends up in the doorway just in time to see her trying to reach a mug with a spoon. Because there isn’t a problem she won’t face head on, won’t try to solve herself. She has her hand braced on the counter, pushing herself just a little higher as she stands on tiptoe. It’s causing her shirt to lift just a little, exposing just a sliver of her midriff. And it wouldn’t be that hard to help her, to stand behind her and pass that mug down, a hand on her waist…</p><p>He tears his eyes away, cheeks flaming in spite of his chills, and fixes them resolutely on the wall. So much so that he doesn’t notice that she’s standing in front of him with a laden tray until she tells him that he’s blocking the exit.</p><p>He follows her back to the living room, careful to look away when she sets the tray on the coffee table, just to be safe - she came here out of kindness, not to be ogled - although he catches her gesture for him to take a seat as she says, “Tea, soup, nap. Proven 100% effective most of the time.”</p><p>“Really,” he says, sitting down (because it’s polite or because <em>she</em> asked or both) “this isn’t necessary -”</p><p>She cuts him off again, “You have a fever. Drink the tea. Eat the soup. And lie down. If you’re still awake after 15 minutes, I’ll back off and let you get back to work.’”</p><p>He opens his mouth, halfway to telling her that he isn’t sick. Closes it, because if that didn’t convince her before the thermometer reading, it’s not going to now. Opens it again, halfway to telling her he doesn’t mind the company. But he doesn’t want to monopolize her time. And he can’t think of how to frame it that doesn’t sound weird or creepy except it shouldn’t be either weird or creepy to ask your friend (because they’re<em> friends</em>) if they’d like to stay a little longer...</p><p>“I didn’t drug your food,” she says dryly.</p><p>“I didn’t think -” he didn’t even suspect that. She’d clearly misinterpreted his silence. But she doesn’t give him a chance to explain.</p><p>“<em>Gray</em>!”</p><p>“Right, sorry.” It’s probably for the best. He doesn't have the first idea as to how he would go about explaining it anyway.</p><p>She sits down at the opposite end of the couch, as far from him as she can get, (it aches, a little, to always be kept at a distance) and he recognizes the MIV study guide she pulls out of her backpack. He sneaks glances at her between mouthfuls of soup, studies the curve of her pursed lips, the way her brow furrows and smooths as she puzzles over the text. She’s quiet, still, in a way that Nick never is - <em>goddamnit it, don’t think about Nick right now</em> - and it’s...nice. Comfortable, to sit in silence with her.</p><p>He doesn’t want to stop.</p><p>And she’s absorbed in her studies. Would she notice if he just...eked his reports over?</p><p>“Hey!” She’s looking directly at him, pointing at the papers under his hand. Yes. Apparently she would notice. “We had a deal,” she reminds him.</p><p>He stares at her for a moment, mind racing (or rather, mind wading through knee deep mud thanks to the congestion) for any excuse to stay out here with her, before the look she’s giving him tells him that he’s not getting out of it.</p><p>“Fifteen minutes,” he confirms.</p><p>“Mhm. Fifteen minutes.”</p><p>He sighs, makes his way to his bedroom and lays down on top of the covers. He isn’t going to fall asleep. He’ll just lie here for the requisite fifteen minutes, then he’ll go back into the living room, tell her it didn’t work, and she can… go…</p><hr/><p>It’s dark. In that hazy space between sleep and waking, he is aware - because his arm is draped over a body - that there’s someone (<em>Ellie</em>) in the bed with him. He gently tugs her closer, nestles back into his pillow for the split-second before his thinking brain kicks in.</p><p>And his eyes fly open.</p><p>He rockets to the edge of the bed, almost falling over the side, <em>we shouldn’t, too close, don’t want to take advantage, doesn’t feel that way about me </em>and…</p><p>And the lump he’d been holding doesn’t budge.</p><p>Because bunched up comforters don’t move.</p><p>He rolls onto his back, and rubs a shaky hand over his face, the wave of panicked adrenaline receding as quickly as it had surged. “<em>Fuck</em>,” he breathes.</p><p>Something else floods him in its place. Something that isn’t quite the ease that comes with relief. Something that feels a little more like a weight in his chest. Disappointment.</p><p>Oh.</p><p>
  <em>Oh shit.</em>
</p><p>He has it so much worse than he thought.</p>
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<a name="section0003"><h2>3. Coda: Nick & Sally</h2></a>
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    <strong>Nick Wiseman’s phone, 9:42 am</strong>
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  <em>Contact: Salome Alavidze</em>
</p><p>Gray’s got a cold. I had to send him home.</p><p>
  <em>[shocked face emoji][pondering emoji]<br/></em>
  <em>OPPORTUNITY KNOCKS!</em>
</p><p>Care package delivery?<br/>But how to make sure they actually talk...</p><p>
  <em>MAKE SURE HE NAPS! [eyebrow waggle.gif]</em>
</p><p>Not thinking about that!<br/>Also, not helpful.</p><p>
  <em>TOTALLY HELPFUL! <br/>HE PROBABLY NEEDS TO, BUT WON’T! <br/></em>
  <em>MAKE IT A CHALLENGE! <br/>TELL HER YOU BELIEVE IN HER!</em>
</p><p>…<br/>You’re a genius. <br/>And a little scary.</p><p>
  <em>[preening.gif] I TRY!</em>
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